Posted on 04/07/2010 2:16:56 PM PDT by neverdem
The BPA Myth
Environmentalists are unbendable on plastics.
On Thursday, April 1, Time published a list of the “ten most common household toxins,” focused on plastics. It claimed, “Chemicals in plastics and other products seem harmless, but mounting evidence links them to health problems — and Washington lacks the power to protect us.” Top of the list was Bisphenol A, or BPA for short.
BPA is an important ingredient in many of the plastic products that have made modern life inexpensive and convenient. BPA is used to make shatterproof water bottles, CDs, food and beverage cans, sporting equipment, eyeglass lenses, and countless medical supplies. Environmentalists argue that it is a toxic substance that should be banned. But there is little scientific evidence that suggests BPA is harmful, and much that suggests it is not.
California provides a good example of how the environmentalists have waged their war. On July 15, 2009, the state’s Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee voted not to list BPA as a reproductive toxicant under the terms of California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65). The very same day, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) submitted a 327-page petition to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to begin a different process by which BPA could be listed as a reproductive toxicant.
The NRDC petition is pathetically weak. It includes as evidence a 2008 National Toxicology Program (NTP) report that showed no harm to humans from BPA, but called for further study. That study is now under way at the federal level, with the National Institutes of Health spending $30 million on research over the next two years. Neither the petition or the NTP report provides any reason for California to ban the substance before the results of the study come in.
Other evidence favors keeping BPA on the market. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report published in the scholarly journal Toxicological Sciences in October 2009 also showed no harm to humans from BPA.
The state — which is mired in budget crisis — is wasting public funds to indulge the whims of a single special-interest group. Yet it is not just taxpayer money that is at stake. NRDC is sending a message to businesses nationwide: If you use BPA — whether to make toys, eyeglasses, or medical equipment — don’t invest here. For no company will invest in a state — and thus create jobs and expand facilities in that state — if the state is threatening to stop manufacturing in the near future. NRDC’s whim is helping to prolong California’s recession.
Ironically, the same EPA study that found no effect from BPA found significant effects from the oral contraceptive Ethinyl Estradiol. Yet when environmental groups are asked whether they should campaign against contraceptive use, they prevaricate. Curt Cunningham, water-quality-issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, dismissed such demands in 2007, saying, “I suspect people would not take kindly to that. . . . For many people, it’s an economic necessity.” Only ideology can explain such a double standard.
The war against BPA is an unrelenting, well-funded propaganda campaign to disregard science in favor of ideology. Every time science scores a victory, the environmental establishment opens another front. When that fails, the groups try to undermine investment in technologies they oppose. In all of this, they are aided by willing allies in the media, who are only too happy to scare people about some new imagined horror, even if it means keeping those same people out of work. We should condemn Time for joining in the environmentalist assault on science.
— Iain Murray is vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. His book, The Really Inconvenient Truths (Regnery, 2008), includes a discussion of the hypocrisy of environmental groups over contraceptives.
No harm found but it does show up in your urine...
Reproductive toxicant ping, but they won’t touch birth control pills.
I’ve run into the NRDC crazies before. They need to be crushed with counter lawsuits for damages.
Irrational fears come from irrational people. The left is filled with these types.
When I was working my way through college I worked in a small “semi-works” chemical plant and one of our specialty items was Bisphenol A Dimethacrylate. It was the main ingredient in dental bonding and temp. filling resins. I suspect that a lot more BPA found its way into people’s blood from this application than what migrates out of baby and water bottles.
Last I checked it’s still used.
It’s not a myth. Even tiny amounts of BPA can cause reproductive and sexual development problems. This IS hard science.
You can start your research into the dangers of BPA at Dr. Mercola’s site, but there is so much evidence it’s crazy to minimize the dangers.
The problems associated with BPA include:
* Structural damage to the brain
* Hyperactivity
* Abnormal sexual behavior
* Increased fat formation
* Early puberty
* Disrupted reproductive cycles
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/04/27/plastics.aspx
We have a responsibility to G-d to keep our bodies healthy, and protect our unborn children.
Oh, yeah, and that is why our birth rates are so low and why the life expectancy, since the invention of plastics, has increased dramatically. These killer plastics are doing us all in. Get real, if you have to worry about something worry about how the government wants to make a slave out of you. Some people are just to damn stupid for words(yep, that includes you).
I read the website, but there is no hard science there. You know, a double-blind study showing real harm, even to lab animals. If there was such a study, that showed any results like that,you can bet they’d be shouting it from every rooftop. Since that site, and the rest of the information about BPA, is lacking that, I am inclined to think that the adverse effects have proven mostly unfounded.
Agree.
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Doesn't that mean your body is getting rid of it?
Think lead. It is the biggest boondoggle out there.
* Structural damage to the brain
* Hyperactivity
* Abnormal sexual behavior
* Increased fat formation
* Early puberty
* Disrupted reproductive cycles
Ironically all the problems "associated" have one thing in common: They are so vague they are undefinable.
That is a certain sign of modern liberal thinking.
LOL! I thought this was about Bonneville Power Administration — BPA to us here in Oregon.
Hope so.
LOL moreso! I thought it was the Business Professionals of America.
I dumped all my plastic containers in favor of glass a while back. Sometimes common sense is more relevant than scientific proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
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